^ Sarah Palin didn't announce her pregnancy to the state until her fifth month. I never once saw a picture of her [in any Alaskan newspaper or elsewhere] where she looked remotely pregnant. The papers all said she waited to announce it so no one would suggest she step aside earlier.

As for the flight while she was in labor, the flight from DFW to Anchorage is 8 hours minimum, and that's without a stop to refuel in Seattle. I'd like to see her speech when she was in labor - I'm sure that would be pretty telling. A keynote speaker is bound to have a fairly lengthy speech. If she got through her speech without a contraction, I'd be impressed. I remember at the time being irritated that she had gone through with the flight - especially after having popped out four kids, she wouldn't have been in labor for long. And you would think flying could cause serious complications, particularly if the baby were to be born halfway between Seattle and Anchorage, which would be extremely likely. [Even for a new mother, the average labor time is 8-14 hours. It only decreases the more children you have.]

I never thought twice about it before. The more I think about it now, the more it seems possible. Then again, I don't care enough to worry about it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Sounds like an exciting job. I used to live in Alaska. I went back about a year ago for my 20th high school reunion.
http://www.videosift.com/talk/Dag-Cow-Sift-Up

In reply to this comment by sorted:
That picture is of me circa ~85 and yes Alaska (for about 5 years), I was up there in Sitka flying on USCG HH-3Fs Helos. Fixer/Flyer (Avionics), in the air I navigated, worked our long range comms and assisted our Flightmechs with hoisting and inflight refueling operations. Primarily search and rescue up there with some fisheries thrown in (this is before it was all fished out...). My Helmet said inappropriately even back then 'Alaska is for Lovers', heh. The kids can't get away with that these days, nope. I really loved my time up there, dunno if I'd enjoy it these days being olde and frail...that reminds me, where's my walker dag nabit!!!

In reply to this comment by dag:
Not a problem. Are you from Alaska? (your helmet)

In reply to this comment by sorted:
Thank you Dag most sincerely.
I was fumbling about trying to
resurrect it.

That picture is of me circa ~85 and yes Alaska (for about 5 years), I was up there in Sitka flying on USCG HH-3Fs Helos. Fixer/Flyer (Avionics), in the air I navigated, worked our long range comms and assisted our Flightmechs with hoisting and inflight refueling operations. Primarily search and rescue up there with some fisheries thrown in (this is before it was all fished out...). My Helmet said inappropriately even back then 'Alaska is for Lovers', heh. The kids can't get away with that these days, nope. I really loved my time up there, dunno if I'd enjoy it these days being olde and frail...that reminds me, where's my walker dag nabit!!!

In reply to this comment by dag:
Not a problem. Are you from Alaska? (your helmet)

In reply to this comment by sorted:
Thank you Dag most sincerely.
I was fumbling about trying to
resurrect it.

The Blackbird is a fascinating aircraft. It appears to be a complete failure when you look at its design goal vs the final product. It was designed to be highly stealth and have a minimal radar cross signature. In reality it has one of the largest signatures and can be detected at several hundred miles away. As honkeytonk says, the fuselage panels fit loosely until warmed up from friction by flying at high speed. The bird would take off and circle around at high speed, dumping fuel all the while, and then be refueled in the air once the panels had expanded.

Despite this, it was still an amazingly successful aircraft with an almost unheard of 33 years service (1966-1999). As their stealth design proved to be largely ineffective, they were fired upon frequently, but not one was ever shot down. Standard missile evasion was to crank the throttle up to top speed; the missile would either be unable to keep up or run out of fuel before it did.

Post World War 2 the Japanese were forced to undergo a massive force reduction under Article 9, to be reconstituted as the JSDF. From Wiki:

Japan's Basic Policy for National Defense stipulates the following policies:

1. Maintaining an exclusive defense oriented policy.
2. To avoid becoming a major military power that might pose a threat to the world.
3. Refraining from the development of nuclear weapons, and to refuse to allow nuclear weapons inside Japanese territory.
4. Ensuring civilian control of the military.
5. Maintaining security arrangements with the United States.
6. Building up defensive capabilities within moderate limits.

Japan's USD $44.3 billion/year budget makes it the fifth largest military spender in the world, after the United States, Germany, United Kingdom and France. About 50% of that is spent on the personnel and the rest is split on supplies, new weapons, upgrades, etc. [7] Reflecting a tension concerning the Forces' legal status, the Japanese term 軍 (pronunciation: gun), referring to a military or armed force, and the English terms "military", "army", "navy", and "air force" are never used in official references to the JSDF.

Article 9

In theory, Japan's rearmament is thoroughly prohibited by Article 9 of the Japanese constitution which not only states, "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes", but also declares, "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained." In practice, however, the Diet (or Parliament) which Article 41 of the Constitution defines as "the highest organ of the state power", established the Self-Defense Forces in 1954. Due to such a constitutional tension concerning the Forces' status, any attempt at enhancing the Forces' capabilities and budget tends to be politically controversial. Thus the JSDF has very limited capabilities to operate overseas, lacks long range offensive capabilities such as long-range surface-to-surface missiles, air-refueling (as of 2004), marines, amphibious units, or large caches of ammunitions. The Rules of Engagement are strictly defined by the Self-Defence Forces Act 1954.

only problem with that, is a chopper is amazingly expensive to keep in the air, and cannot follow for as long as you'd think before having to refuel.

also, it's very easy to lose a chopper (i.e: enter a multi-story carpark that joins a shopping center). But hard to lose one that can spot you a mile away as the only car speeding

... and to be fair, i dont think that door touched him. he swerved to dodge it and lost his footing

lol buzz

in a lot of ways you're right mink.. if i had infinite money, i could give away infinity-x money without losing too much sleep.. great, he did it, but i don't give out brownie points for someone doing something that i consider bog standard humanity.. good job, you're human, no cookie though

seriously.. he's gonna go home, sip on some martini type drink that probably costs 80 dollars to make.. made by a professional who is payed 80 dollars an hour to mix martinis.. slouch back in his leather recliner that cost about 5 thousand, or take a shower in his multi-jet-pwn-shower-system.. take a swim in his pool, go for a fly in his jet, do what-the-fuck-ever he wants to do, anytime, all the time..

then he'll write a cheque for a charity for 700 million dollars... fuck it, who cares? he can still afford to refuel his jet

get off the charity thing, in his situation it's either give something he won't miss and not look like an asshole, or keep something he doesn't need and look like an asshole

Actually, from the youtube submission itself: "An excerpt from the 1958 "Disneyland" TV Show episode entitled "Magic Highway USA". In this last part of the show, an exploration into possible future Transportation technologies is made. It's hard to believe how little we've accomplished on this front since 1958, and how limited the scope for imagining such future technologies has become. Witness an artifact from a time where the future was greeted with optimism. Note the striking animation style here, achieved with fairly limited animation and spectacular layouts."

So it's from 1958.

I also completely disagree with the comments by the youtube submitter saying how our scope for imagining the future is so limited now. It's nothing to do with lack of vision, it's to do with understanding the realities of technology more. We know now how HARD it is for cars to drive themselves. How stupidly EXPENSIVE it'd be to make all highways internally heated. How ridiculously WASTEFUL it would be to have every house having its own carwash and refueling station (unless by refueling you mean solar recharging, in which case, go right ahead). Also very wasteful for everyone to have their own car that goes to work... what's wrong with public transport? And moving footpaths everywhere? Come on, do we really need to be THAT lazy? It was the preoccupation back then, of having everything done for you, well it's pretty ridiculous and counterproductive when you think about it. Also, punch cards, a real sign of those times.

Individual car escalators up mountains? Yeah that has a high traffic throughput.

Why should the highways be air conditioned themselves? It's pure pie in the sky stuff. These days there's more grounded predictions that actually have a basis in reality.

It's not a case of us lacking imagination, it's a case of in 1958 people didn't understand technology at all so thought it could do Everything.

It can't.

Not yet.

Still, a fun video

Just did a news check (X prize cup news/media is irritatingly restricted) and looks like they've had a crash (new link btw)

That link has a vid, but its at range so you cant see too much. Hopefully better vids will get released.

Looks like the following occurred: Module 1 made a successful first run (90 sec flight time minimum, 50 meters into the air, then over to a pad another 100 meters away and land). They would then have been able to refuel, before making the return trip, for another 90sec flight. This return trip is where the crash occurred, just at the last possible second. They had flown the 100 meters horizontal, and where hovering low over the pad so that an engine failure would mean they were low to the ground, not falling form a full hight, however, the extended low hover + dust made things unstable, and it tipped over on landing. So close, but still very impressive. Its unfortunate that they have been unable to make flights like this, in testing (insurance reasons, safety reasons and license reasons) so simple things like "don't hover too low to run the clock down" could have been learned. In fact, they might have won this last year if they could have done such testing and thus discovered the landing gear/gps offset probs they had. Still, apparently they have a spare Mod so can re attempt the Level 1 challenge for the $350k, and still have PIXELS level 2 challenge to go.

Whatever happens, I'm certain their project/development would continue, but if they can succeed, the prize money and media coverage will be great both for them and the ammeter rocketry community in general. Bring on space for the common person

One of the best games back in the day was Star Raiders on the Atari 800. Hyperspacing from sector to sector to chase down enemy ships and refueling/repairing at the stations was very cool. The sound of the klaxon...

Haha, hydrogen fuel cells. It takes more oil to make hydrogen fuel cells than would normally be used by the average car to just drive, not to mention the incredible added cost of a hydrogen-based fuel system in your car, not to mention the incredible inconvenience of the complete non-existence of hydrogen refueling stations.

I remember this incident. French intelligence had human elements inside this terror group, and knew they had plans to turn a plane into a flying bomb by refuelling in Marseille and then crashing it into the Eiffel Tower or the Montparnasse Tower, also in Paris. This is why the decision was made to storm the plane, rather than try to negotiate further.

It makes you wonder if a US intelligence community which hadn't abandoned human intelligence after the cold war in favour of technological gadgets would have been more alert to the possibility of an attack such as 911.

""Also, it is true that wind and nuclear power are less efficient than fossil fuels. This is simply because you can harness so much energy from a small amount of oil."

That depends on how you look at it. Nuclear and fossil fueled power plants have to keep being refueled. It takes energy to make that fuel. Once a wind turbine has been built, the energy it produces is practically free.

lol@put the cap back on. Yeah i'll remember that next time i see a fire next to a petrol tank in a gas station! not!

i don't think she looks calm, she looks like she has no idea what she is playing with (hence the lack of fear).

very very very interesting that you have gas stations all over america that can do this, just because of a simple switch that some states won't mandate. how freaking lazy do you have to be to drive everywhere and then not even bother to wait while you refuel? lol!

UmberGryphon is right in most places, expect that while the EV would cost more then a tradition gasoline car, the actual electrical cost to refuel it is 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of equivalent gas. The 80,000 dollar figure is taking into account the costs of R&D. And this is the firs time I have ever heard of any heating issues, as far as I know the lease program was implemented in places where there was ready areas to supply the electrical power.

My main problem is that the EV-1 was never marketed well at all, the people who leased them weren't even allowed to buy their leased vehicle. GM basically confiscated everything, shut up and went on to produce SUV and suburbans. Finding it self in the same position as the other Big 3, lagging behind innovative technologies from east Asian companies like Toyota.

The fact is that any new technology that comes out is imperfect and requires refinement, remember the first cars? Hell the first MP3 players? This is where economics of scale come in. GM had a golden opportunity, especially with emission laws California was pushing at the time and has started to only implement now.

The question should really be "Is profit of a few companies, a good enough reason to squander our environment?"